


Five things that happened at Herrington High

by SharpestRose



Category: The Faculty (1998)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-01
Updated: 2011-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 22:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SharpestRose/pseuds/SharpestRose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The good guys always win. In movies, anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five things that happened at Herrington High

1.

Once she's officially enrolled, she heads back out towards the front entryway. People seem in no particular hurry to get to class and it makes her sad, seeing how little pride they take in their education. None of the teachers care, none of the students care. And those rare bright sparks who want to do something with themselves, they're the ones who end up the most miserable of all. It's like some cruel joke the planet's playing on itself.

The boy she saw run into the flagpole by those other kids is leaning against a row of lockers near the front door, a wadded-up napkin pressed against his nose. It's not doing much of a job, and his fingers are all bloodied.

"Here," Marybeth offers, pulling a sachet out of her purse. "It's one of those little towelettes you get at fast food places. For your hands."

He looks at her, his pupils widening as his eyes adjust to the dimness of the hall after looking out at the brightness of the sun. "Thanks," he says. He pulls the ruined napkin away from his nose and a ropy string of blood and snot comes with it, making even more of a mess of his hands and face. "Shit," he mutters.

"Hey, it's all right," she replies cheerfully. "I'm Marybeth Louise Hutchinson. I was gonna go to school here but I've decided y'all are deviants and freaks and that I'd rather take my chances somewhere else."

Blinking, the boy looks at her in incomprehension for a moment. Then he chuckles, tilting his head back in another futile attempt to stem the flow of blood.

"You wouldn't have liked it here anyway," he mutters. "I'm Casey."

"Nice to meet you," answers Marybeth. "Are you going to the nurse about that nose? It looks kinda painful."

"It's all right." Casey shakes his head as much as the angle he's holding it permits. "I'm used to it."

"Doesn't sound like something I'd wanna be used to," Marybeth says. "Is there a water fountain around here? I'm thirsty."

Casey makes a face. "They're mostly disgusting. People stick their gum on them and stuff. There's an okay one in the cafeteria courtyard, on the other side of this building."

Marybeth shakes her head. "I don't have time to make it, I should get to class if I don't wanna start my first day with a tardy slip. You sure you're okay?"

Casey nods again. His nose seems to be stopping, and he sniffs experimentally. "Yeah, fine."

"Good. Nice meeting you," she says again with a small smile, and turns to go.

"Hey, wait." Casey puts out his hand and touches her upper arm lightly. Her skin is overwarm, like someone who has been out in the sun too long. "Here." He reaches down into the knapsack by his feet and pulls out a juice box, the plastic straw coming loose. "So you're not thirsty."

"Thankyou!" Marybeth's smile grows wide and happy. "Find me at lunch and I'll buy you a sodapop in return, okay?"

Casey's surprise is obvious. "Uh, sure. See you then."

At lunch his nerve fails and he goes to his usual spot on the bleachers by himself. Coach Willis comes and acts like a dick, as usual, and Casey decides that he's had enough of this shit for one day. For a lifetime or two, really. He goes to hunt her down, finally seeing her at a table by herself looking unhappy and worried.

"Uh, hi," he says. "How's your first day going?"

Marybeth blinks, looking at him as if she doesn't recognise him for a moment. Then her habitual smile falls back into place.

"Casey! Want me to get you a coke?"

"Nah, it's ok. My mom always packs two juice boxes for me."

"Considerate. She must be a nice lady."

Casey gives her a thin-lipped smile. "She is, most of the time. So are you settling in okay?"

Now it's Marybeth whose smile looks like a lie. "Yeah, it's all going fine. Sure are a lot of tense people around, though."

Casey laughs. "You noticed that too, huh?"

Marybeth moves her hand on the tabletop, so the fingers brush Casey's own. She speaks, but doubts that he notices what she's saying.

"Must be something in the water here."

 

  
2.

Zeke rubs his eyes again and tries to concentrate. His hands are shaking a bit and he feels like either his heart's gonna explode or he's gonna puke up his lungs or something. People _pay_ him for this? What are they, utterly fucking masochistic?

He has a moment of clarity. "Hey, Marybeth?"

"Yeah, Zeke?" she asks from the backseat. She's still giggling in fits and starts, and he's glad that the scat didn't make her sick or anything because of her allergy.

"Know how you said it wasn't your fault? To Delilah?"

"Mm-hmm," Marybeth answers, shifting forward in her seat to hear him better. He tries to remember what she smells like up close. In the rearview mirror Zeke can see her palm, the fingers splayed wide, resting on Casey's knee. It makes his already hammer-like heart go even weirder and he's not sure exactly why. There's something casually possessive in the touch that sends his nerves jangling. He wants to kiss her again.

"Zeke?" Stan prompts. "You there? Don't go zoning out while you're driving, dude."

"I was just thinking about that. Not being your fault." Zeke explains to Marybeth's reflection. Despite the drugs, her gaze is sharp and level. "Story of our fucking generation, isn't it? None of it's our fault. We didn't ask to be born into a world that our parents raped and pillaged. You know?"

"Yeah," Marybeth says. "Exactly."

"But we don't do anything to fix it, either." Stokely's voice is harsh. "We're not helpless victims."

"Don't see you giving your allowance to Greenpeace," Casey snipes back. He's shaking pretty bad, and looks even worse than Zeke feels. Marybeth rubs the knee under her palm calmingly, and Zeke feels grateful that she's here. She kinda reminds him of what he would have liked his mom to have been.

"We can make it better," says Marybeth. "If we really want it to be."

Stan starts humming a tune, tapping the door beside him almost in time to the song only he can hear.

"Can you fucking quit that, please?" Zeke's never been less in the mood. Stan stops, and starts fidgeting instead, pulling his seatbelt slack and letting it snap back over and over.

Casey's picking at the nail on his right thumb, chewing at it idly until it starts to bleed.

"We're never going to be able to fight them like this," he says, pulling his hand away from his mouth with an expression of horror and disgust. "We're not even fit to be allowed across the street by ourselves."

"It," Zeke collects his thoughts as well as he can. "It wears off fast. We'll be fine soon."

"It's pretty ironic," Stan muses. "When you think about it. That the only way we know we haven't been mindfucked is because we did the mindfucking ourselves."

"Yeah, real rain-on-your-wedding-day ironic," Stokely shoots back with as much vitriol as she can muster. It isn't a lot. "At least we'll go back to being us when it wears off. Provided that Zeke hasn't royally messed up and left us all short-circuited."

"What the hell are we doing." Casey's voice is flat, and so the question comes out a statement.

Nobody answers for a beat. Then Marybeth speaks.

"Saving the world."

  
3.

"You ever read any science fiction?" Stokely asks. The gym echoes around them, cavernous and gutted. One of the streamers hanging from the rafters comes loose and drifts, a gory red ribbon against the dusty air.

"Not much," Marybeth replies. "I never had any time for fiction, I was always studying. I wanted to know all about the world before I tried my hand at living in it. Then..." she hesistates, glancing at Stokely as if trying to decide if it's safe to share truths. "Then I had to live in it sooner than I expected, and I worked out that I'd never have known enough to make it easy even if I'd studied for a million years. I kinda wish I'd spent more time on fun stuff instead of trying so hard. I didn't know I'd never get a chance later."

"Must be hard, being an orphan," Stokely says even though she knows it's a trivial and stupid thing to say. She has to say _something_ , and it comes to mind first.

"We're all orphans here," answers Marybeth quietly. Then, rallying from whatever dark thoughts overtook her, she looks up again. "So, tell me about science fiction."

Stokely shrugs. "There's so much of it. Most of the really good stuff's from the fifties. They were trying to make sense of the stuff that scared them, and pretty much everything was scary back then. I guess that's why I started reading them." Now it's Stokely's turn to look momentarily guarded. She hesitates, then sighs a little. "I was a nervous kid, and at least with sci fi I had stuff to be properly nervous about.

"First one I read was this Richard Matheson one about the end of the world. Everyone's turned into vampires and there's just this one guy left. He goes out and kills them every day but there's always more, because you can't kill the whole world, right? And he's going crazy because he's so horny and he's just killing and killing. Then at the end they catch him and they're all scared because in their heads _he's_ the one who's different, the one who's frightening. He's been murdering them every day. The book ends with him killing himself, I think. I can't remember."

Marybeth shivers. "That's horrible."

With a shrug, Stokely turns on the bench to face Marybeth better. "It's just a story. But it got me hooked. Horrified fascination; I was terrified of all the blood. There's this other guy - fifties as well, of course - John Wyndham. He wrote this book about this bunch of kids who all share a brain, kind of. They all get born at the same time in the same little town, and everyone's frightened of them. They were aliens, I think. Or Soviets... if there was any real difference between the two in sci fi back then. We kill them all in the end, because one guy takes all these bombs into the school while all the kids are there. That one creeped me the hell out too, because they were just _kids_. It was like the vampires all over again. They weren't evil, they were just... evolved, I guess. People version two-point-zero. I saw a movie of it and in that one of the kids escapes. I thought how lonely he must have been, the only one of his kind in the world. It was sad."

"Don't you ever get tired of keeping all this stuff in your head?" Marybeth asks now. She sounds a little sad herself. "Not sharing it with anyone, being all bottled up and alone?"

"Hey, I'm sharing with you, aren't I?" Stokely retorts, and finds herself smiling. She's actually bonding with another human being, a pale little wisp of one but human nonetheless. Stranger things have probably happened... like aliens taking over the town, for one. But Stokely performing voluntary interaction still rates highly on the outside-the-box charts, even compared to attacks from outer space.

"I really liked that book," she goes on. "But the library didn't have any of Wyndham's others. I rented a movie they'd made of one. The whole world goes blind except for a couple of people and there are these flesh-eating plants going around and stinging people with poison. We win in that one, too. Water, would you believe? The plants - triffids - they die in _water_. I thought that was such a fucking cop-out, but I was glad that the world got saved. Then I read the book and it wasn't like that at all. Nothing kills triffids, except fighting them off every day. And I wondered, you know, why they bothered. The people. Even at twelve years old I didn't buy that humanity's will to live was strong enough to fight that kinda threat. There's no way. We kill each other and ourselves every day." Stokely stops talking, cradles her head in her hands for a minute. "Sorry, I shouldn't give you the whole Oprah share-time like this when we're supposed to be all full of self-preservation ourselves."

"It's okay," Marybeth says. They're quiet for long minutes. Stuff's happening outside, violent sounds and flares of brightness coming through the windows. The gym, large as it is, feels claustrophobic.

"Used to think the only alien in the school was me," mutters Stokely.

"That's not the case." Marybeth murmurs. "There's Casey. And me. Maybe even Zeke. Delilah and Stan were too, but they're not now."

Stokely blinks, then gives a bitter little laugh. "Stan's right. It is ironic. They stopped being aliens by turning into creatures from another world. Sci fi writers would cream themselves at the whole situation."

"Who do you think it is? The Queen Bee?"

Stokely shrugs. "If we knew, we'd be able to get it over with. It could be anyone."

This time, they're quiet for even longer. Somebody outside is screaming.

"Movies always fuck it up," Stokely says eventually. "They give the stories happy endings, or they let someone escape, or everything goes back to normal. Except invasion of the body snatchers. But that was ok, because I hated the end of the book. Self-preservation is bullshit, like I said. The movie's better."

"How does the movie end?"

"They get us. They win. We lose." Stokely sounds matter-of-fact.

"Maybe," Marybeth's voice is hesitant, as if she's sharing some dear secret and is afraid Stokely will not see it for the treasure it is. "Maybe... we really win."

Stokely makes a disbelieving noise. "No way. We're killing the species ourselves. Aliens showing up is just gonna make it go faster. There aren't any happy endings."

"No, I mean." Again, Marybeth hesitates. Stokely looks up at her. "Stan didn't look unhappy, did he? Maybe it's not so bad." There's a tremble in Marybeth's voice and Stokely feels a pang of pity. She must be really terrified, poor thing.

"That's because that wasn't Stan, they took away who he was," Stokely explains gently, then turns and stamps her foot against the flimsy wooden seating. "God fucking dammit, the one human being I gave a shit about and they turned him into a pod person."

Marybeth's fingers curl and uncurl, and Stokely remembers how Marybeth pushed her onto Stan's lap. It feels good to have an ally, for a change.

"It'll be okay. I promise. When you guys are back on the same side together, it'll be okay," says Marybeth calmly. "Everything will."

"Your enthusiasm overwhelms. Really." Stokely's tone is dry. Then, without the cool veneer, timidly, she says "You honestly think it's gonna go all right? That we can turn everyone back? It hurts to think about it, the way they just... took away who he was."

"Maybe they just bettered who he was." The tremble in Marybeth's voice has become near-panic, soft but with an edge. "Aren't you tired? I'm tired."

"It's okay. It'll be over soon." Stokely's feeling a bit worried, now. Marybeth's eyes are so wide that Stokely can see a rim of white all around her iris, like when animals go crazy. Maybe Marybeth's dehydrated. They don't have any water.

Stokely thinks again of triffids, and of the last man in the world. Blood and suicide pills, that's all that's left to eat. Homemade hack drugs and bottled water.

"They made it all right. They cleared away his confusion, and everything was like clean water," says Marybeth, and for a crazy second Stokely thinks she's talking about the guy in the book. Marybeth keeps talking. "I know you pride yourself on being the outsider, Stokely. On being alone. But you don't have to be, none of us have to be. You're not alone... aren't you tired of pretending to be something you're not?"

Stokely doesn't know what to say. Marybeth stands up.

"I know I am."

  
4.

"Stokes! Stokely!" Casey calls, running to her side. She sits up gingerly, one hand going to the side of her head.

"Uh... something must've hit me. Marybeth and I were talking..." Stokely looks around. "What happened?"

"I don't know. I just got in here and you were on the ground." Casey's panting from his race away from the football team, and it's a moment before he can catch his breath enough to speak again. "Where's Marybeth?"

"Oh, _fuck_." Stokely stands up, resting her hand on Casey's shoulder to steady herself. "Something must've got her."

"Look!" Casey jogs over to a shape over by the edge of the stands, leaving Stokely to get her footing before coming over at a slower pace. "It's her clothes, they're all ripped up."

"Mrs Brummel tried to strip off, remember?" Stokely says, running her fingers through her hair and grabbing at the locks in worry. "I was thinking before that Marybeth looked dehydrated. Maybe they got her and she didn't have enough water in her."

"Shit. Where would she go?" Casey looks around, wildly. "The pool!"

Casey thinks his heart stops for at least four beats when they get to the pool and Marybeth's there, sitting on the edge with her feet in the water as if she doesn't have a care in the world. Maybe, Casey thinks, she doesn't anymore.

He's seen nudity before. He's even done life drawing classes at this very school, back in the younger grades before he could choose the photography stream in art class. But Marybeth's body is nothing like the ones he's seen. Casey thinks of the girls in the well-loved copies of _Boob_ and _Looker_ that his parents confiscated, the airbrushed and chemical-pumped women who all say they're eighteen and who look as real as big pink dolls. It's strange that the first female body he sees that looks natural and human is one that isn't human at all.

"Marybeth?" he says, hesitantly.

"Like what you see, Casey?" she stands, the movement of the pale skin on her thighs making Casey's throat feel dry. "Wanna touch me?"

"Whoever got her's still in the building somewhere," Stokely says. "We're doomed. Don't you come any closer!" The shout's directed at Marybeth, now stepping around the edge of the pool towards them.

"Stokely," Marybeth says sweetly, tilting her head to one side. "Don't be like that. I thought we were friends."

"You're not her."

"Why do you keep saying that? Why's it so hard to believe that it just makes everything better? And how do you know that I haven't been like this all along?"

"What the fuck?" Stokely grabs onto Casey's arm again, blinking quickly as if her vision's failing. "Marybeth?"

"Still wonderin' who the Queen Bee is?" Marybeth asks, a slow and wicked grin forming on her lips. "Well. Buzz buzz."

"Fuuuck." Casey pulls one of Stokely's arms with both hands, dragging her back towards the gym. "Stokes, come on."

Stokely trips, her ankle caught by a long and slithering tentacle. Casey, still holding onto her, falls a moment later. "Fuck, fuck," he says, over and over. Another tentacle whips out, knocking his head back and then wrenching Stokely from his grasp and under the water.

He can't see what's happening under the surface, there are too many air bubbles and waves for anything to be clear. A bloom of red thins to pink as it spreads out, and things go still. Casey skids backwards on his palms, sneakers scrabbling against the wet tile.

Stokely emerges, one hand and then the other on the edge as she hauls herself out. Her mouth and chin are bloodied.

"Casey," she says, gasping. "She's dead, I think."

Marybeth is floating facedown near the middle of the pool. Her hair moves a little, like seaweed. She's so pale.

"Is it over, then?" Casey asks. Stokely nods slowly. "You're," Casey goes on. "You're... you?"

"Yeah," Stokely breathes in a lungful of air. "I think so. I hope so." She sniffles a bit, as if overjoyed. "I'm who I always should have been. Two-point-zero."

Casey's heart does the skip-four-beats feeling again and he tries to stand up and run, but it's too late. Marybeth is paddling lazily to shore, and Stokely's standing right beside him. She leans in towards his ear and her lips part, like one child passing a secret to another.

They wait for Zeke in the locker room. It doesn't take long before he arrives. Stokely's gone to find Stan, and it's just Marybeth and Casey there to greet him.

"Oh, fuck," Zeke says. It seems almost profound, the way he looks up at the ceiling as he says it. Marybeth steps towards him, her wet hair leaving rivulets down her breasts and stomach.

"Zeke!" Casey cries. "Over here."

Zeke runs over, and brandishes a penful of scat like a gun. "I wanna see you take it."

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" says Casey. "We've got to get Marybeth."

"I want to see you take it first," Zeke demands. Casey takes the pen and holds it, unused, in one hand. It's then that Marybeth grabs him from behind.

"Sorry, Zeke, time's up."

"Fuck," Zeke says again. Marybeth laughs.

"Famous last words."

5.

 _one month later..._

Stan watches the team play. Now that Zeke's there, they don't need him anymore, so he's concentrating on his studies after all. Seems to him that things always turn out like they're meant to in the end. He got the first round of replies back from colleges yesterday: an acceptance from each and every place he applied to.

Stokely comes over and puts her arm around him. She's beautiful, just like he said she would be. He's decided that he's going to marry her after college.

"No regrets?" she asks.

"None whatsoever," Stan answers.

Casey is taking photographs when Delilah comes over and says hello to him. Beautiful before, she has blossomed beyond even that now. He greets her with a kiss.

"How're the pictures going?" she asks him.

"All right," he answers. He looks good. Bettered.

Marybeth watched him closely at first, but after a week or two her attentiveness dropped off. He was best, brightest, fiercest. "The hardest converts make the best zealots," she says sometimes. The irony delights her.

He keeps the last pen of scat, handed to him by Zeke in those final crazy moments before they lost the war, on him at all times. There will only be one perfect moment to use it, Casey is sure, and he will not let it pass him. He thinks of the shutter of his camera, open long enough to catch only the smallest fraction of time and hold it static.

He does not think about the drugs, ever. Even when he holds it in his hands, he forces the plans out of his head. Enemies live there. Sometimes he loses his grip on the controls for hours, days at a time. After those occasions, Casey has to stop himself from shoving the pen up his own nose and being done with it. He forces himself to believe that things are not that bad yet. His chance is coming.

He does not let himself think about the possibility that the perfect moment will come too late.

Casey looks over at where Marybeth sits, under the trees. She's drinking from a juice box. Casey's mother packs two for him every morning, and every day he gives one to her. Her smiles are growing wider with each offering. One day she'll trust him completely, and drop her guard. Casey is ready. He raises his camera to his eye, and takes a picture. The shutter clicks, the film whirs. Soon.

Movement under the skin makes the shape of his wrist ripple, and he makes himself sneeze to avoid crying out at the pain.

"You sure you're all right?" Delilah asks. Casey redoubles his efforts to look ordinary, and grins at his girlfriend.

"Never better."

 

  



End file.
